Another fine report, Bill. Lots of rich stuff and fine lines, like "Too little carbon dioxide is a problem for the planet in the way that too little arrogance is a problem for the president."
You identify one of things that terrifies me about Zeldin's new rule: it will make it harder to address global warming into the future. The death and destruction of climate catastrophes are difficult to contemplate. But they will bring one further consequence. They will lead the people toward authoritarian leaders in a fear-based reaction to the chaos. All of the world's pro-democracy movements, including our own, could suffer.
16 solar panels, two storage batteries, and two EVs. My son hasn't paid for gas for 16 years, and we've had solar for 15 years. We just added the storage batteries. Solar works for us, and California too.
Ever since “Step It Up” and 1Sky merged and you introduced those giant “3” and “5” and “0” iconic banners in Golden Gate Park, I have been on board with the <350 goal.
Sadly, the deck has been stacked against us. Sad to read, “I led a large-scale effort to remind people that anything above 350 ppm is too high, and that was so successful that we’re now at 420 ppm and climbing.”
Time to think outside the box and step outside our comfort zone.
A good article, coming on the heels of a rejection upheld by a major journal.
Humans are in charge of gatekeeping STEM journals, which are the arbiters of what is true. I sent a rejoinder to the journal showing that every basis for rejection was addressed in the paper and supplement---providing section number locations for each. I expanded on certain points, and took down a 2024 placement in Nature by Roger Pielke, who has made a career as a hitman for fossil fuel interests. The rejection was a hatchet job, or incompetent, and appears to be both, although "true believer" can't be ruled out.
Until the protest response was received, there was nothing that could be seen of the real posture of the handling editor. To be honest, I expected a "talk to the hand" posture, and laid groundwork in the initial letters, but one does expect better from Royal Society. I helped a colleague I published with deal with the same thing from PNAS in the same field, Climate Economics. That was an experience in bizarre referee critiques. Based on the evidence, the Climate Economics field was created by Nordhaus to be a servant of fossil fuel interests. The modeling foundations were fictional, disjoint from reality. They occupy a crucial bit of intellectual ground, determination of damages from climate change. There may be a few who see it, but anyone who calls it out is cut out of the field in the USA. In the UK, there are a few, such as Lord Stern, who have made cases that have been mostly ignored.
Today's rejoinder response: "As per our appeals policy https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rspa/for-authors#question10 the decision on the appeal is final and we won’t reconsider the decision or any further responses. The case is now closed and we won’t enter in any further correspondence on this."
I suppose I could view this as an example of how the academy, like the rest of the world, has an attention span that has declined so much that it can't read and comprehend papers for review. But based on experience, I think this is the kind of hubris one runs into in academia, that knows it has power, can abuse it with impunity, and does so egregiously without caring that the "little people" underneath can see the abuse clearly. I remember when I was in grad school telling a particularly appalling professor that the differences between him and the gangsters of Central Asia I had dealt with is that they had a degree of honor, and they killed people instead of wrecking their careers. (In that case, I had prevented him from killing people from his misunderstanding, but this enraged him.)
So that leaves the courts as the avenue for forcing the issue. Courts are poor substitutes, expensive, and the system is filled with litigators who just do not care about anything but how much they can profit. There is a basis, as the UK has regulation/guidelines from a government body that journals are supposed to comply with, but it is a tough road and probably beyond my financial capacity.
OF COURSE it was R Maxwell (he who taught her everything she knows) who set up the scam that is the journal publication system these days: and it’s been poison for academia, in a myriad of ways. But, like you, I had thought better of the Royal Society. Although lately - well, it has to be said their copybook has been blotted in other ways too (Muskrat FRS???). Money talks far too loudly these days to many organisations who used to hold themselves aloof. Flashy marble foyers rather than dusty libraries…
There are some smaller journals with great editors that do much better; and having served on the last REF exercise I can say with confidence that the fame of the journal is no longer any kind of indicator of the quality of the papers therein. Pushing back on the current publication system is starting to feel obligatory.
Great stuff. The last part comparing fossil fuels and EV missed that the solar panels minerals need to come from somewhere. Sure solar is better for many reasons but let's make sure it's not child and slave labour mined, the environmental impact of making the panels and to remember that we also need to reduce our need for energy. Like for fast fashion, AI, strawberries all through the year, mansions etc.
Let's go deeper why we have a disconnect from nature and compassion, how to address root issues of worldviews like modernity (Vanessa Andreotti), industrial growth society (dear Joanna Macy), lack of maturity (Bill Plotkin, Darcia Narvaez), ancestral trauma (Thomas Hübl, Daniel Foor).
Yes, absolutely! One of the joys for me has been spending most of my career working alongside historians (I’m a scientist). Setting out a timeline of when things happened really helps for understanding WHY they happened; and it is also gold-dust for uncovering flawed paradigms. So many have rested on fossil-fuel slaves…
Grift... I thought when hmpy trmPEDOphile ran for president that rich people wouldn't like it.. because the world would get an inside view of what grifters the rich are...
Little did I know it would not matter because the fools that support hmpy aren't smart enough to get it.. and the rich will just get more grift
Subject: what climate change being a hoax would require people to believe
I came across this question and the answers below in Yuval Harari's book, '21 Lessons for the 21st Century.'
"For one to believe climate change is a hoax, one must also think one of the following (equally absurd statements):
1. Greedy renewable energy producers are willing to bribe scientists to lie, while the fossil fuel producers are so honest that they are not willing to pay scientists to tell the truth.
2. Scientists are willing to take money from renewable producers, but for some reason unwilling to take money from the fossil fuel industry.
3. Both industries are willing to finance scientific research, and scientists are willing to take money from both. But the renewable energy industry has much more money."
The book has many insights into a very wide range of personal and cultural issues, past and presents. He is an interesting thinker and scholar of history.
I highly recommend the book. It is not overly long or difficult as he writes very plainly and succinctly while not avoiding our most complex issues, from identity, freedom and the self, to AI, politics, progress, war, religion and much more. The 21 chapters have one word titles identifying the general topic, and a subtitle making an interesting statement.
It was published in 2019, but it's text is relevant and very often timeless.
Harari may be a familiar name as he wrote the well-known best-seller 'Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.' He also wrote 'Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow.'
I came across this question and the answers below in Yuval Harari's book, '21 Lessons for the 21st Century.'
"For one to believe climate change is a hoax, one must also think one of the following (equally absurd statements):
1. Greedy renewable energy producers are willing to bribe scientists to lie, while the fossil fuel producers are so honest that they are not willing to pay scientists to tell the truth.
2. Scientists are willing to take money from renewable producers, but for some reason unwilling to take money from the fossil fuel industry.
3. Both industries are willing to finance scientific research, and scientists are willing to take money from both. But the renewable energy industry has much more money .
Harari may be a familiar name as he wrote the well-known best-seller 'Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.' He also wrote 'Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow.'
Here is the newest USA Con but it involves your retirement funds or 401Ks, the sale of Our Federal Roadless areas still proposed by Trump and the Federal Loan Guarantee Program. Recent legislation passed in the House to allow Private Investment Funds (PIF) to access ( for investment) your 401K account, begins this process. Money goes to buy lands in the Roadless areas of our National Forests. The Federal Government Loan Garauntee programs back the loans from banks that accept the land and trees as collateral. The fund defaults on the loan, having invested that money for its own stock buybacks or other speculative purchases, like dental offices or ships to Mars. No problem if they default, the Government Loan Program will pay the bank loan, though maybe not dollar for dollar. Banks are weakened, lands needed for watershed and carbon sequester are no longer protected by the Forest Service and payments for forest or logging roads further burdens our common forests. Meanwhile you are left with stranded interests as part of your retirement portfolio. What might stop this? Senate Bill S2221 from Senator Wyden of Oregon. Designed to have some accountability by USDA and US Department of Interior Cabinet heads to set some limits and guardrails on these scams to leave our economy and USA government on the hook.
Can a magnetic pole shift have an effect on the temperature patterns on this planet? I know it has had an impact on which way our weather patterns come now. Besides blowing around the “Man made pollution” around the globe. That’s keeping in the heat.
I’m going to have a conversation soon with a neighbor who doesn’t believe in climate change. I’m fathering articles and facts to discuss with him. I’m wi seeing what you think about the Energy Dept report (151 pgs)
Argh! I’ve never left a comment before and it sent before I was done. Excuse errors.
I was reading the chapter about sea level rise and it seems reasonable, but I know their thesis is flawed. I just don’t know how to combat PhDs and make a good case.
Another fine report, Bill. Lots of rich stuff and fine lines, like "Too little carbon dioxide is a problem for the planet in the way that too little arrogance is a problem for the president."
You identify one of things that terrifies me about Zeldin's new rule: it will make it harder to address global warming into the future. The death and destruction of climate catastrophes are difficult to contemplate. But they will bring one further consequence. They will lead the people toward authoritarian leaders in a fear-based reaction to the chaos. All of the world's pro-democracy movements, including our own, could suffer.
16 solar panels, two storage batteries, and two EVs. My son hasn't paid for gas for 16 years, and we've had solar for 15 years. We just added the storage batteries. Solar works for us, and California too.
Ever since “Step It Up” and 1Sky merged and you introduced those giant “3” and “5” and “0” iconic banners in Golden Gate Park, I have been on board with the <350 goal.
Sadly, the deck has been stacked against us. Sad to read, “I led a large-scale effort to remind people that anything above 350 ppm is too high, and that was so successful that we’re now at 420 ppm and climbing.”
Time to think outside the box and step outside our comfort zone.
If we are serious, We the People must demand
#RetireRefineries at #TwoPerWeek
(20 years ago it was #OnePerWeek)
Glad to live in a place where the public transportation is excellent and I don't need a car.
A good article, coming on the heels of a rejection upheld by a major journal.
Humans are in charge of gatekeeping STEM journals, which are the arbiters of what is true. I sent a rejoinder to the journal showing that every basis for rejection was addressed in the paper and supplement---providing section number locations for each. I expanded on certain points, and took down a 2024 placement in Nature by Roger Pielke, who has made a career as a hitman for fossil fuel interests. The rejection was a hatchet job, or incompetent, and appears to be both, although "true believer" can't be ruled out.
Until the protest response was received, there was nothing that could be seen of the real posture of the handling editor. To be honest, I expected a "talk to the hand" posture, and laid groundwork in the initial letters, but one does expect better from Royal Society. I helped a colleague I published with deal with the same thing from PNAS in the same field, Climate Economics. That was an experience in bizarre referee critiques. Based on the evidence, the Climate Economics field was created by Nordhaus to be a servant of fossil fuel interests. The modeling foundations were fictional, disjoint from reality. They occupy a crucial bit of intellectual ground, determination of damages from climate change. There may be a few who see it, but anyone who calls it out is cut out of the field in the USA. In the UK, there are a few, such as Lord Stern, who have made cases that have been mostly ignored.
Today's rejoinder response: "As per our appeals policy https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rspa/for-authors#question10 the decision on the appeal is final and we won’t reconsider the decision or any further responses. The case is now closed and we won’t enter in any further correspondence on this."
I suppose I could view this as an example of how the academy, like the rest of the world, has an attention span that has declined so much that it can't read and comprehend papers for review. But based on experience, I think this is the kind of hubris one runs into in academia, that knows it has power, can abuse it with impunity, and does so egregiously without caring that the "little people" underneath can see the abuse clearly. I remember when I was in grad school telling a particularly appalling professor that the differences between him and the gangsters of Central Asia I had dealt with is that they had a degree of honor, and they killed people instead of wrecking their careers. (In that case, I had prevented him from killing people from his misunderstanding, but this enraged him.)
So that leaves the courts as the avenue for forcing the issue. Courts are poor substitutes, expensive, and the system is filled with litigators who just do not care about anything but how much they can profit. There is a basis, as the UK has regulation/guidelines from a government body that journals are supposed to comply with, but it is a tough road and probably beyond my financial capacity.
Grrr: sympathies, Spartacus.
OF COURSE it was R Maxwell (he who taught her everything she knows) who set up the scam that is the journal publication system these days: and it’s been poison for academia, in a myriad of ways. But, like you, I had thought better of the Royal Society. Although lately - well, it has to be said their copybook has been blotted in other ways too (Muskrat FRS???). Money talks far too loudly these days to many organisations who used to hold themselves aloof. Flashy marble foyers rather than dusty libraries…
There are some smaller journals with great editors that do much better; and having served on the last REF exercise I can say with confidence that the fame of the journal is no longer any kind of indicator of the quality of the papers therein. Pushing back on the current publication system is starting to feel obligatory.
Great stuff. The last part comparing fossil fuels and EV missed that the solar panels minerals need to come from somewhere. Sure solar is better for many reasons but let's make sure it's not child and slave labour mined, the environmental impact of making the panels and to remember that we also need to reduce our need for energy. Like for fast fashion, AI, strawberries all through the year, mansions etc.
Let's go deeper why we have a disconnect from nature and compassion, how to address root issues of worldviews like modernity (Vanessa Andreotti), industrial growth society (dear Joanna Macy), lack of maturity (Bill Plotkin, Darcia Narvaez), ancestral trauma (Thomas Hübl, Daniel Foor).
Thank you for all your work.
Yes, absolutely! One of the joys for me has been spending most of my career working alongside historians (I’m a scientist). Setting out a timeline of when things happened really helps for understanding WHY they happened; and it is also gold-dust for uncovering flawed paradigms. So many have rested on fossil-fuel slaves…
Grift... I thought when hmpy trmPEDOphile ran for president that rich people wouldn't like it.. because the world would get an inside view of what grifters the rich are...
Little did I know it would not matter because the fools that support hmpy aren't smart enough to get it.. and the rich will just get more grift
Subject: what climate change being a hoax would require people to believe
I came across this question and the answers below in Yuval Harari's book, '21 Lessons for the 21st Century.'
"For one to believe climate change is a hoax, one must also think one of the following (equally absurd statements):
1. Greedy renewable energy producers are willing to bribe scientists to lie, while the fossil fuel producers are so honest that they are not willing to pay scientists to tell the truth.
2. Scientists are willing to take money from renewable producers, but for some reason unwilling to take money from the fossil fuel industry.
3. Both industries are willing to finance scientific research, and scientists are willing to take money from both. But the renewable energy industry has much more money."
The book has many insights into a very wide range of personal and cultural issues, past and presents. He is an interesting thinker and scholar of history.
I highly recommend the book. It is not overly long or difficult as he writes very plainly and succinctly while not avoiding our most complex issues, from identity, freedom and the self, to AI, politics, progress, war, religion and much more. The 21 chapters have one word titles identifying the general topic, and a subtitle making an interesting statement.
It was published in 2019, but it's text is relevant and very often timeless.
Harari may be a familiar name as he wrote the well-known best-seller 'Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.' He also wrote 'Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow.'
I came across this question and the answers below in Yuval Harari's book, '21 Lessons for the 21st Century.'
"For one to believe climate change is a hoax, one must also think one of the following (equally absurd statements):
1. Greedy renewable energy producers are willing to bribe scientists to lie, while the fossil fuel producers are so honest that they are not willing to pay scientists to tell the truth.
2. Scientists are willing to take money from renewable producers, but for some reason unwilling to take money from the fossil fuel industry.
3. Both industries are willing to finance scientific research, and scientists are willing to take money from both. But the renewable energy industry has much more money .
Harari may be a familiar name as he wrote the well-known best-seller 'Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.' He also wrote 'Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow.'
Here is the newest USA Con but it involves your retirement funds or 401Ks, the sale of Our Federal Roadless areas still proposed by Trump and the Federal Loan Guarantee Program. Recent legislation passed in the House to allow Private Investment Funds (PIF) to access ( for investment) your 401K account, begins this process. Money goes to buy lands in the Roadless areas of our National Forests. The Federal Government Loan Garauntee programs back the loans from banks that accept the land and trees as collateral. The fund defaults on the loan, having invested that money for its own stock buybacks or other speculative purchases, like dental offices or ships to Mars. No problem if they default, the Government Loan Program will pay the bank loan, though maybe not dollar for dollar. Banks are weakened, lands needed for watershed and carbon sequester are no longer protected by the Forest Service and payments for forest or logging roads further burdens our common forests. Meanwhile you are left with stranded interests as part of your retirement portfolio. What might stop this? Senate Bill S2221 from Senator Wyden of Oregon. Designed to have some accountability by USDA and US Department of Interior Cabinet heads to set some limits and guardrails on these scams to leave our economy and USA government on the hook.
Great read, as always.
For what it’s worth, Ireland failed to stop a US company from building a “huge LNG complex” in county Kerry
https://gov.ie/en/department-of-climate-energy-and-the-environment/press-releases/government-approves-development-of-state-led-strategic-gas-emergency-reserve/
https://www.lngfree.ie/
Can a magnetic pole shift have an effect on the temperature patterns on this planet? I know it has had an impact on which way our weather patterns come now. Besides blowing around the “Man made pollution” around the globe. That’s keeping in the heat.
I got my first EV, a LEAF 10 years ago. Despite all the marketing, I figured out it was all I could afford.
I’m going to have a conversation soon with a neighbor who doesn’t believe in climate change. I’m fathering articles and facts to discuss with him. I’m wi seeing what you think about the Energy Dept report (151 pgs)
A Critical Review of Greenhouse Gas Emissions…
Argh! I’ve never left a comment before and it sent before I was done. Excuse errors.
I was reading the chapter about sea level rise and it seems reasonable, but I know their thesis is flawed. I just don’t know how to combat PhDs and make a good case.
Welcome to the new CO2PA
"my children – and everyone’s children – deserve to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and live in a healthy environment."
When we can no longer breathe the air or drink the water, nothing else will matter.